G.R. No.

L-23002

July 31, 1967

CONCEPCION FELIX VDA. DE RODRIGUEZ, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
GERONIMO RODRIGUEZ., ET AL., defendants-appellees.
Ozaeta,
Gibbs
and
Ozaeta
for
plaintiff-appellant.
Sycip, Salazar, Luna and Associates and Carolina C. Grio-Aquino for defendants-appellees.
REYES, J.B.L., J.:
This is an appeal by Concepcion Felix Vda. de Rodriguez from the decision of the Court of First
Instance of Bulacan in Civil Case No. 2565, which she commenced on May 28, 1962, to secure
declaration, of nullity of two contracts executed on January 24, 1934 and for recovery of certain
properties.
The facts of this case may be briefly stated as follows:
Concepcion Felix, widow of the late Don Felipe Calderon and with whom she had one living child,
Concepcion Calderon, contracted a second marriage on June 20, 1929, with Domingo Rodriguez,
widower with four children by a previous marriage, named Geronimo, Esmeragdo, Jose and Mauricio,
all surnamed Rodriguez. There was no issue in this second marriage.
Prior to her marriage to Rodriguez, Concepcion Felix was the registered owner of 2 fishponds located
in the barrio of Babagad, municipality of Bulacan, Bulacan province. with a total area of 557,711
square meters covered by OCT Nos. 605 and 807. Under date of January 24, 1934, Concepcion Felix
appeared to have executed a deed of sale conveying ownership of the aforesaid properties to her
daughter, Concepcion Calderon, for the sum of P2,500.00, which the latter in turn appeared to have
transferred to her mother and stepfather by means of a document dated January 27, 1934. Both
deeds, notarized by Notary Public Jose D. Mendoza, were registered in the office of the Register of
Deeds of Bulacan on January 29, 1934, as a consequence of which, the original titles were cancelled
and TCT Nos. 13815 and 13816 were issued in the names of the spouses Domingo Rodriguez and
Concepcion Felix.
On March 6, 1953, Domingo Rodriguez died intestate, survived by the widow, Concepcion Felix, his
children Geronimo Esmeragdo and Mauricio and grandchildren Oscar, Juan and Ana, surnamed
Rodriguez, children of a son, Jose, who had predeceased him.
On March 16, 1953, the above-named widow, children and grandchildren of the deceased entered
into an extra-judicial settlement of his (Domingo's) estate, consisting of one-half of the properties
allegedly belonging to the conjugal partnership. Among the properties listed as conjugal were the two
parcels of land in Bulacan, Bulacan, which, together with another piece of property, were divided
among the heirs in this manner:
WHEREAS, the parties have furthermore agreed that the fishpond covered by TCT Nos.
13815, 13816 and 24109 of the Office of the Register of Deeds of Bulacan, containing an area

of 557,971 sq. m., which is likewise the conjugal property of the deceased and his surviving
spouse; 1/2 of the same or 278,985.5 sq. m. belongs to said Concepcion Felix Vda. de
Rodriguez, as her share in the conjugal property; and 3/4 of the remaining half or 209,239.125
sq. m. are transferred in full ownership to Geronimo Rodriguez, Esmeragdo Rodriguez and
Mauricio Rodriguez, share and share alike, while the other 1/4 or 69,746.375 sq. m. of the said
remaining half goes in equal shares to Oscar Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez and Ana Rodriguez.
As a result of this partition, TCT Nos. 13815 and 13816 were cancelled and TCT Nos. T-11431 and T14432 were issued in the names of the said heirs of the deceased.
On March 23, 1953, in a power of attorney executed by the children and grandchildren of Domingo
Rodriguez, Concepcion Felix Vda. de Rodriguez was named their attorney in-fact, authorized to
manage their shares in the fishponds (Exh. 4).
On July 2, 1954, the heirs ended their co-ownership by executing a deed of partition, dividing and
segregating their respective shares in the properties, pursuant to a consolidation and subdivision plan
(PCS-3702), in accordance with which, Concepcion Felix Vda. de Rodriguez obtained TCT No. T12910, for the portion pertaining to her (Exh. L), while TCT No. T-12911 was issued to the other heirs,
for their shares. This latter title was subsequently replaced by TCT No. 16660 (Exh. M).
On October 12, 1954, the Rodriguez children executed another document granting unto the widow
lifetime usufruct over one-third of the fishpond which they received as hereditary share in the estate
of Domingo Rodriguez, which grant was accepted by Concepcion Felix Vda. de Rodriguez.
Then, in a contract dated December 15, 1961, the widow appeared to have leased from the
Rodriguez children and grandchildren the fishpond (covered by TCT No. 16660) for a period of 5
years commencing August 16, 1962, for an annual rental of P7,161.37 (Exh. 5).1wph1.t
At about this time, it seemed that the relationship between the widow and her stepchildren had turned
for the worse. Thus, when she failed to deliver to them the balance of the earnings of the fishponds,
in the amount of P3,000.00, her stepchildren endorsed the matter to their lawyer who, on May 16,
1962, sent a letter of demand to the widow for payment thereof. On, May 28, 1962, Concepcion Felix
Vda. de Rodriguez filed the present action in the Court of First Instance of Manila naming as
defendants, Geronimo Rodriguez, Esmeragdo Rodriguez, Oscar Rodriguez, Concepcion Bautista
Vda. de Rodriguez, as guardian of the minors Juan and Ana Rodriguez, and Antonio Diaz de Rivera
and Renato Diaz de Rivera, as guardians of the minors Maria Ana, Mercedes, Margarita, Mauricio, Jr.
and Domingo (Children of Mauricio Rodriguez who had also died).
The action to declare null and void the deeds of transfer of plaintiff's properties to the conjugal
partnership was based on the alleged employment or exercise by plaintiff's deceased husband of
force and pressure on her; that the conveyances of the properties from plaintiff to her daughter and
then to the conjugal partnership of plaintiff and her husband are both without consideration; that
plaintiff participated in the extrajudicial settlement of estate (of the deceased Domingo Rodriguez)
and in other subsequent deeds or instruments involving the properties in dispute, on the false
assumption that the said properties had become conjugal by reason of the execution of the deeds of
transfer in 1934; that laboring under the same false assumption, plaintiff delivered to defendants, as

income of the properties from 1956 to 1961, the total amount of P56,976.58. As alternative cause of
action, she contended that she would claim for her share, as surviving widow, of 1/5 of the properties
in controversy, should such properties be adjudged as belonging to the conjugal partnership. Thus,
plaintiff prayed that the deeds of transfer mentioned in the complaint be declared fictitious and
simulated; that the "Extrajudicial Settlement of Estate" be also declared null and void; that TCT No.
16660 of the Registry of Deeds of Bulacan be cancelled and another one be issued in the name of
plaintiff, Concepcion Felix Vda. de Felix; that defendants be ordered to pay plaintiff the sum of
P56,976.58, with legal interest thereon from the date of the filing of the complaint, and for appropriate
relief in connection with her alternative cause of action.
In their separate answers, defendants not only denied the material allegations of the complaint, but
also set up as affirmative defenses lack of cause of action, prescription, estoppel and laches. As
counterclaim, they asked for payment by the plaintiff of the unpaid balance of the earnings of the land
up to August 15, 1962 in the sum of P3,000.00, for attorney's fees and expenses of litigation.
On October 5, 1963, judgment was rendered for the defendants. In upholding the validity of the
contracts, the court found that although the two documents, Exhibits A and B, were executed for the
purpose of converting plaintiff's separate properties into conjugal assets of the marriage with
Domingo Rodriguez, the consent of the parties thereto was voluntary, contrary to the allegations of
plaintiff and her witness. The court also ruled that having taken part in the questioned transactions,
plaintiff was not the proper party to plead lack of consideration to avoid the transfers; that contracts
without consideration are not inexistent, but are only voidable, following the ruling in the case
ofConcepcion vs. Sta. Ana (87 Phil. 787); that there was ratification or confirmation by the plaintiff of
the transfer of her property, by her execution (with the other heirs) of the extrajudicial settlement of
estate; that being a voluntary party to the contracts, Exhibits A and B, plaintiff cannot recover the
properties she gave thereunder. Plaintiff's alternative cause of action was also rejected on the ground
that action for rescission of the deed of extrajudicial settlement should have been filed within 4 years
from its execution (on March 16, 1953).
From the decision of the Court of First Instance, plaintiff duly appealed to this Court, insisting that the
conveyances in issue were obtained through duress, and were inexistent, being simulated and
without consideration.
We agree with the trial Court that the evidence is not convincing that the contracts of transfer from
Concepcion Felix to her daughter, and from the latter to her mother and stepfather were executed
through violence or intimidation. The charge is predicated solely upon the improbable and biased
testimony of appellant's daughter, Concepcion C. Martelino, whom the trial court, refused to believe,
considering that her version of violence and harassment was contradicted by Bartolome Gualberto
who had lived with the Rodriguez spouses from 1917 to 1953, and by the improbability of Rodriguez
threatening his stepdaughter in front of the Notary Public who ratified her signature. Furthermore, as
pointed out by the appealed decision, the charge of duress should be treated with caution considering
that Rodriguez had already died when the suit was brought, for duress, like fraud, is not to be lightly
paid at the door of men already dead. (Cf. Prevost vs. Gratz, 6 Wheat. [U.S.] 481, 498; Sinco vs.
Longa, 51 Phil. 507).

What is more decisive is that duress being merely a vice or defect of consent, an action based upon it
must be brought within four years after it has ceased; 1 and the present action was instituted only in
1962, twenty eight (28) years after the intimidation is claimed to have occurred, and no less than nine
(9) years after the supposed culprit died (1953). On top of it, appellant entered into a series of
subsequent transactions with appellees that confirmed the contracts that she now tries to set aside.
Therefore, this cause of action is clearly barred.
Appellant's main stand in attacking the conveyances in question is that they are simulated or fictitious,
and inexistent for lack of consideration. We shall examine each purported defect separately.
The charge of simulation is untenable, for the characteristic of simulation is the fact that the apparent
contract is not really desired or intended to produce legal effects or in way alter the juridical situation
of the parties. Thus, where a person, in order to place his property beyond the reach of his creditors,
simulates a transfer of it to another, he does not really intend to divest himself of his title and control
of the property; hence, the deed of transfer is but a sham. But appellant contends that the sale by her
to her daughter, and the subsequent sale by the latter to appellant and her husband, the late
Domingo Rodriguez, were done for the purpose of converting the property from paraphernal to
conjugal, thereby vesting a half interest in Rodriguez, and evading the prohibition against donations
from one spouse to another during coverture (Civil Code of 1889, Art. 1334). If this is true, then the
appellant and her daughter must have intended the two conveyance to be real and effective; for
appellant could not intend to keep the ownership of the fishponds and at the same time vest half of
them in her husband. The two contracts of sale then could not have been simulated, but were real
and intended to be fully operative, being the means to achieve the result desired.
Nor does the intention of the parties to circumvent by these contracts the law against donations
between spouses make them simulated ones.
Ferrara, in his classic book, "La Simulacion de los Negocios Juridicos" (Sp. trans, 1926), pp. 95, 105,
clearly explains the difference between simulated transactions and transactions in fraudem legis:
Otra figura que debe distinguirse de la simulacion es el fraus legis. Tambien aqui se da una
gran confusion que persiste aun en la jurisprudencia, apegada tenazmente a antiguos errores.
Se debe a Bahr el haber defendido con vigor la antitesis teorica que existe entre negocio
fingido y negocio fraudulento y haber atacado la doctrina comun que hacia una mescolanza
con los dos conceptos.
Se confunde dice (2) , el negocio in fraudem legis con el negocio simulado; aunque la
naturaleza de ambos sea totalmente diversa. El negocio fraudulento no es, en absolute, un
negocio aparente. Es perfectamente serio: se quiere realmente. Es mas, se quiere tal como se
ha realizado, con todas las consecuencias que correspondent a la forma juridica elegida.
Muchas veces, estas consecuencias con incomodas para una u otra de las partes, aunque
serian mucho mas incomodas las consecuencias que lievaria consigo el acto prohibido.
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El resultado de las precedentes investigaciones es el siguiente el negocio simulado quiere

producir una apariencia; el negocio fraudulente, una realidad; los negocios simulados son
ficticios, no queridos; los negocios in fraudem son serios, reales, y realizados en tal forma por
las partes para consequir un resultado prohibido: la simulacion nunca es un medio para eludir
la ley sino para ocultar su violation. La transgresion del contenido verbal e inmediato de la
norma se encubre bajo el manto de un negocio licito, lo cual no altera el caracter del contra
legem agere. Tan verdad es, que si se ha redactado una contra-escritura que documentary y
declara la verdadera naturaleza del negocio realizado, no queda mas que aplicar pura y
simplementela prohibicion.
Tambien el fraude quiere perjudicar la ley, pero emplea para ello medios diversos y sigue
distintos caminus. No oculta el acto exterior, sino que lo deja claro y visible, tratando de huir
sesgadamente de la aplicacion de la ley merced a una artistica y sabia combinacion de varios
medios juridicos no reprobados.
Appellant invokes our decision in Vasquez vs. Porta, 98 Phil. 490, but to no purpose. The mortgage
and foreclosure sale involved in that case were typical simulations merely apparent but not really
intended to produce legal effects, as approved by the Court's finding that the alleged creditor and
buyer at the foreclosure sale "Porta himself ostensibly acknowledged by his inertia in allowing the
doctor (alleged mortgagor debtor) to exercise dominical power thereon without any protest on his
part." (cas. cit., p. 495). Not only this, but the mortgagor's wife, when her husband died, "found among
his papers Porta's cancellation of the mortgage in his favor and the draft of the complaint for
foreclosure." Plainly, the precedent cited is here inapplicable.
Were the two conveyances from appellant to her daughter and from the latter to the spouses
Rodriguez void ab initio or inexistent for lack of consideration? We do not find them to be so. In the
first transaction, the price of P2,500.00 is recited in the deed itself (Exh. A); in the second (Exh. B),
the consideration set forth is P3,000.00. Now, Article 1274 of the Civil Code of 1889 (in force when
the deeds were executed) provided that
In onerous contracts the cause is understood to be, for each contracting party, the
prestation or promise of a thing or service by the other. (emphasis supplied.)
Since in each conveyance the buyer became obligated to pay a definite price in money, such
undertaking constituted in themselves actual causa or consideration for the conveyance of the
fishponds. That the prices were not paid (assuming ad arguendo that Concepcion Martelino's
testimony, to this effect is true) does not make the sales inexistent for want of causa. As ruled
in Enriquez de la Cavada vs. Diaz, 37 Phil. 982, "the consideration (causa) need not pass from one
(party) to the other at the time the contract is entered into x x x . The consideration need not be paid
at the time of the promise. The one promise is a consideration for the other."
What would invalidate the conveyances now under scrutiny is the fact that they were resorted to in
order to circumvent the legal prohibition against donations between spouses contained in Article
1334, paragraph 1, of the Civil Code of 1889, then prevailing. That illegal purpose tainted the
contracts, for as held by the Spanish Tribunal Supreme in its decision of 2 April 1941.

ha de ser reputado ineficaz, por exigencias includibles del caracter social y moral del Derecho,
todo contrato que persiga un fin ilicito o immoral, sea cualquiera el medio empleado por los
contratantes para lograr esa finalidad, no justificada por un interes digno de ser socialmente
protegido.
The illicit purpose then becomes illegal causa within the terms of the old Civil Code, for as declared
by the same Spanish Court in its decision of 14 December 1940
toda vez que lo que caracteriza fundamentalmente la ilicitud de la causa es la lesion de un
interos general juridica 6 moral.
a ruling reiterated in the decision of 2 April 1941 when the Court ruled:
El concepto de la causa ilicita, tal como la desenvuelve y aplica con gran amplitud y
flexibilidad la doctrina moderna, permite cobijar, no solo las convenciones ilicitas por razon de
su objeto o de su motivo ... sino tambien multiples convenciones que no encerrando en si
ningun elemento de directa antijuricidad son ilicitas por el matiz immoral que reviste la
operation en su conjunto x x x .
Unfortunately for herein appellant, in contracts invalidated by illegal subject matter or illegal causa,
Articles 1305 and 1306 of the Civil Code then in force apply rigorously the rule in pari delicto non
oritur action, denying all recovery to the guilty parties inter se. And appellant is clearly as guilty as her
husband in the attempt to evade the legal interdiction of Article 1334 of the Code, already cited.
Wherefore, her present action to reivindicate the, conveyed properties was correctly repulsed by the
Court below.
Art. 1306. If the act which constitutes the illicit consideration is neither a crime nor a
misdemeanor, the following rules shall be observed:
1. When both parties are guilty, neither of them can recover what he may have given by virtue
of the contract, or enforce the performance of the undertaking of the other party;
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That Article 1306 applies to cases where the nullity arises from the illegality of the consideration or
the purpose of the contract was expressly recognized by this Supreme Court in Gustilo vs. Maravilla,
48 Phil. 449-450.2
Finally, it cannot be denied that plaintiff-appellant had knowledge of the nullity of the contract for the
transfer of her properties in 1934, because she was even a party thereto. And yet, her present action
was filed only on May 28, 1962 and after the breaking up of friendly relations between her and
defendants-appellees. Appellant's inaction to enforce her right, for 28 years, cannot be justified by the
lame excuse that she assumed that the transfer was valid. Knowledge of the effect of that transaction
would have been obtained by the exercise of diligence. Ignorance which is the effect of inexcusable
negligence, it has been said, is no excuse for laches. (Go Chi Gun, etc., et al. vs. Co Cho, et al., G.R.
No. L-5208, Feb. 28, 1955). Even assuming for the sake of argument that appellant held her peace,

during the lifetime of her husband, out of legitimate fear for her life, there is no justification for her
future to bring the proper action after his death in 1953. Instead, she entered into a series of
agreements with herein appellees, the children of her husband by a prior marriage, of partition,
usufruct and lease of their share in the fishponds, transactions that necessarily assumed that
Rodriguez had acquired one-half of the litigated fishponds. In the circumstances, appellant's cause
has become a stale demand and her conduct placed her in estoppel to question the Validity of the
transfer of her properties. (Manila, et al. vs. Galvan, et al., G.R. No. L-23507, May 24, 1967; Perez vs.
Herranz, 7 Phil. 695-696).
In view of the foregoing, the decision appealed from is affirmed. Costs against appellant Concepcion
Felix Vda. de Rodriguez. So ordered.